Kenya currently is facing the future with much trepidation. Although a lot of hopes and expectations have been invested in the current processes of democratic change and its capacity to engineer good governance, however, the possible outcome of the processes still remain uncertain and open to conjecture. What is clear though from the historical experiences of Kenya and other countries and regions of the world is that democracy and good governance are not given, rather they are products of the concrete political struggles waged by the dominated groups in the society.
Contrary to what other people might want the nation to think. Those thousands of people constantly showing-up for the teargas Monday, despite knowing the imminent danger that they are exposing themselves to and their families are communicating something about the current regime and electoral process in Kenya. Either there is something inherently wrong with the Kenyan IEBC, current regime or there is something wrong with the masses. Let's cut some slack here most of those people attending the demonstrations are educated people with sound mind so don't give me the nusu mkate thing or because of the so called tribal kingpin.
Secondly, I believe the Kenyan police institution has learned individuals managing it and are very conversant with international human rights laws and the mandate of the Kenya police which are: To maintain law and order, preserve peace, protect life and property, prevent and detect crime, apprehend offenders and enforce all laws and regulations with which it is charged. Aren't there non-violent ways the police can contain the demonstrations? or killing the citizenry is the only way to contain the demonstrations, if I may ask?
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| Fig 1: Ben Ngare and IEBC protestor being beaten by the police |
The central purpose of government in a democracy is to be the role model for, and protector of, equality and freedom and our associated human rights. I believe it's the democratic right of every Kenyan to protest on certain issues they deem not right, these does not mean they have to be killed for that, if there are miscreant within the demonstrations they should be singled out and arrested but these is not what we are seeing. As much as the government is blaming the opposition on the deaths of demonstrators we are seeing, the government is also equally responsible for those deaths because they have the mandate and opportunity to prevent them. The sad thing though is that we didn't learn any lessons in the 2007/2008 post election violence and it pains me to the bone when people bring in bigoted tribal nonsense of the Kikuyu, Kalenjin and Luos in this IEBC protest". Peace to Kenya from a frustrated Kenyan.
